Firstly I replaced every joint and bush in the suspension system. I used standard Vauxhall rubber bushes since I didn't want to make the ride too harsh. At the same time I installed some budget gas filled dampers that I had hanging around (from online autosport ). About doing the suspension rebuild.

At the rear I installed Powerflex bushes (from Demon Tweeks) due to a mistake I made first time round. The standard bushes have cut outs that need to be orientated correctly with respect to the car. This is because the cut outs give the bushes different firmness in different directions at 90deg to each other. When I mistakenly put the bushes in at random orientation I got it wrong big time - the rear assembly was free to wibble around and it made the handling a bit unpleasant, more like an old van rather than a hatch. About fitting rear bushes

My conclusions after this work were:

• The car felt faster. This must be because less energy was wasted in flexing the old rubber.
• Bumps showed up much more. I got a major headache when travelling over the numerous joins on a section of concrete motorway. I like my car to be this way, but much more and it would start to be unpleasant.
• The steering felt a bit better, but not much. This was disappointing.
• Body roll didn't seem affected much. This is not suprising since the GTE has gas filled shocks as standard.
• The Powerflex bushes created a bit more rumble from the back.

After a few days with the set up I decided that the ride was too harsh. It was fine on the motorway but uncomfortable on bumpy (i.e. most) roads. After a few weeks it didn't bother me any more. This was either because it had settled down a bit or I'd become used to it.

I looked at big name suspension kits and narrowed things down to two main names: Koni and Bilstein. Both have been recommended in various places and by people I know. None of the kits are cheap, but it's worth spending some cash on sorting the handling out.

Koni sport suspension kit	4 x top adjustable dampers, 4 x -40mm springs	£399 Inc VAT	Eg suppliers: Demon Tweeks Larkspeed Motech
Koni dampers	4 x top adjustable dampers	4 x £88 = £352 Inc VAT
Bilstein Sprintline Kit	4 x dampers, 4 x -40mm springs	£393 Inc VAT

In the end I bought the Koni sports kit for £299 inc VAT (list price £399) from Larkspeed.
The kit consists of four top adjustable dampers and four lowering springs. The damping rate is adjusted by turning a spindle which protrudes from the top of the shock absorber. This progressively closes a valve within the shock which acts to restrict internal fluid flow. The valve has about 2 & 1/4 turns from lock to lock. Fully clockwise setting is "city", 1/2 turn is recommended for a firmer ride and 1 turn (max allowed) is "GT" ie: bumpy.

My impressions of the kit were:

• The rear springs didn't seem any lower than the original ones, but the front ones were a clear 20-30mm shorter.
• It did look a bit lower when on the ground. Good.
• I set the dampers just past the 1/2 turn point which should give a firm/comfortable ride.
• It was quite bumpy but a bit more compliant than my previous budget gas shocks.
• Cornering was vastly improved. Especially on tight corners in wet.
• Braking felt much better, tested in wet.
• The adjustment facility is a good toy. The range isn't such that you need hours of testing to get it right. Rather it just allows tuning for personal preference. Generally soft settings will give better grip but allow more body roll.

Over a few weeks I experimented with the suspension settings. I found that setting the front 1/4 of a turn harder than the rear made the steering feel better. Trying 1/4 at front and 0 at rear was smoother but not quite as positive as 1/2 at the front and 1/4 at the rear. I still suspected that using Powerflex bushes at the rear might have been a mistake. The car was still quite harsh on bumps.

After a month or so I still thought the Koni's to be too hard. So I adjusted them onto the softest setting. That gave a ride that was OK to just OK. It still felt/sounded like the car was going to be blown to bits when hitting a big hole. But I do like the low look and the cornering ability is great.

I did talk to some tuners about suspension. Courtenay recommended Bilstein gas shocks, commenting that Koni were too hard for road use. Regal said that Koni were the best. PMC tried to sell me their own kit. Online Autosport also recommended Bilstein Sport dampers suggesting that they be combined with the Koni springs. At the end of the day it's a matter of personal preference. I decided to stick with the Koni kit.

In the wet I found it better to leave the rear at the softest setting. Otherwise it was very easy to provoke the back end into breaking loose.

I looked at what the major mail order places had to offer and settled on Momo items supplied by Demon Tweeks. The upper brace was Alloy and quite expensive at £88. The lower one was Steel and cost £40.

In theory fitting a strut brace is a simple idea. But that's not if you've got an Irmscher inlet manifold in the way. This gave me bit of a dilemma - did I return it and try to find one that would fit or did I make it fit? I took the latter course. By bending it in a vice, fitting it backwards, filing out the holes and hacksawing a protrusion off the throttle housing I made it fit. Knocked very slightly on start up though. It took me a few days to get the desired shape so that it didn't knock. I also filed down the throttle cable bracket on the inlet manifold. There was about 5mm of clearance between the engine and the brace.

I took the car out after fitting the upper brace and the difference was noticeable immediately, even round town at 30mph. If felt a lot more firm and less vibration prone. On fast corners I did not notice a vast difference, but it did seem to make the car a bit more confident.

It was a similar story with the lower strut brace. The bracket on the uprated downpipe just caught the brace when I accelerated. There was only about 3mm of clearance to start with. As a first idea I tried to bend the downpipe by lower the full weight of the car onto an axle stand pushing on the downpipe. A bit scarey that was, but it did put about 2mm of bend. Next I spent about half and hour with the angle grinder working away at the offending piece of bracket. It's been fine since, with about 7mm of clearance.

I did not notice a vast difference to the car's handling after adding the lower brace but I don't see why it shouldn't help by holding the geometry on hard cornering.

A few months later I was travelling along a forest track at the rally of Great Britain when both wheels went down potholes. There was a nasty noise as the car bottomed out. Later inspection showed that the lower strut brace was bent. Handling felt worse. I ordered a replacement but I never got round to fitting it. I don't know if the lack of clearance is worth it really.

I did fit the second one. This time round I put a flat onto it so that it would clear the exhaust down pipe.

At about the same time as fitting the kit I became aware of a slight wander when driving in a straight line. One day a rumbling/droning sound started whenever I started to turn right. At first I thought it was the gearbox, then it occurred to me that the wheel bearings might be the cause. So I replaced them. That improved the steering and removed the noise, but things still weren't right.

I still wasn't happy with the straight line steering. It was especially tiresome on the motorway. The car would wander and require constant effort to keep a straight course maintained. After speaking to a few people I decided to replace the power steering rack. For £115 + VAT I bought a reconditioned exchange unit (supplier). Fitting it wasn't too much hassle. About fitting the steering rack..

The new rack improved the steering by a large amount. It did feel heavy around the central position though. I was told that this was probably due to the new PTFE seals in the unit needing time to bed in. After 3-4 weeks the steering felt almsot normal again.

Unfortunately I damaged my new steering rack not long after I had totally sorted the suspension. A top tip is to replace your front tyres if they are starting to look worn. I made myself live with the knackered rack for a few months. When replacement time came I considered a non-pas Quickrak. This reduces the the number of turns lock to lock from 3.5 to 2.5. My decision alternated daily as to whether losing the power assistance was a good idea versus the sports appeal of less turns. Eventually I decided to go for the Quickrak. If I didn't like it then it would be a simple enough task to refit the PAS. The Quickrak is made by Power Steering Services and sold by Trans Auto Sport. It cost £99, which is less than a reconditioned standard rack.

Fitting the rack is simple in theory, but took a lot longer than I expected. About fitting the rack.

I took the car out for a test drive straight after fitting the rack. First impressions were feck me! Very heavy on a right hand T junction at 20mph. But once the speed was above about 30mph then it felt alright. Straight lines and gentle twists in the road were amazing. Direct and almost no movement needed. Roundabouts in the wet were good. I was laughing out loud. I could feel the wheels breaking away as I booted round the roundabouts. I was starting to warm to this idea. Slow roundabouts reminded me how much heavier the steering was. Im summary I'd say "not for the faint hearted", but sort of more fun than the standard power assisted rack.

After a year of use I had several handling problems with the Astra. These were traced to bulkhead flex. Essentially, the chassis was pulling itself apart under the loads of acceleration and high speed cornering. When all the other problems were sorted I still had steering problems. I was tipped off on the internet that the Power Steering Services Quickrak are not fully hardened and therefore wear quite quickly. Inspection of the internals confirmed moderate wear after 30,000 miles use.

I spoke to Power Steering Services about this and they explained that the racks weren't really meant for road use. They didn't harden the internals to such a degree as production racks so that they retained their toughness and didn't break on impact. I looked around to see who else made suitable racks. Years ago Irmscher used to make Quicrakcs, but not any longer. Harry Hockley Motorsport make 2.5 turn power steering racks for rally use. But they're around £700 new. Which makes fitting a £95 Quickrak every other year seem better value for money.

On the MIG bulletin board I heard about the "bump steer mod". Now when the wheels move up and down the steering angle is affected. What happens is that the tie rod pivots about it's mounting point. Thus the end that is connected to the suspension strut moves in an arc. This means that the join is not moving just vertically but it also has a small horizontal movement. The Vauxhall engineers reduced this effect by making the tie rod horizontal when the car is level. This minimises the geometry change when the wheels move up and down. However when a car is lowered the tie rods no longer start off level. They rise up from the rack to the suspension strut. This increases the geometry change for a certain up/down movement by a significant amount - a factor of 6 for the Astra with a 40mm lower. A solution to this is to raise the position at which the tie rods connect to the rack by fitting some sort of bracket.

A long time after coming up with the concept above I finally got round to doing it for real. By this time I no longer had power steering which meant no annoying pipes in the way which mean I was a bit more free to do what I wanted with the design. Essentially the brackt lifts the connection point for the tie rods up by 40mm to match the suspension drop. I got a local machine shop to make it for me out of 316 Stainless Steel. This is the stuff that knives and forks are made of, so rust is not an issue. It wasn't cheap mind, and it weighs a bit. Not as much as the PAS rack and pump though.

I tested the mod on two occasions about a year apart. Both times I did not think that it improved the steering. I'm not sure why, I think it was to do with the loads placed on the rack by moving the tie rods upwards.

Ever since an involving track day at Castle Combe the car never handled right. I replaced the front track rod ends and lower ball joints to see if this would help. It did a little. Next I suspected that the tyres were badly worn so I tried the old 14" wheels. This seemed to help a bit, but it didn't solve the problem. I then decided that maybe the bushes were worn so I fitted Powerflex Polyurethane front bushes. Whilst fitting these I noticed a crack in the driver's side chassis leg. The next day I went round my favourite local garage, Banana and we discovered that the bulkhead was flexing. The solution was to seam weld all the suspect joins for extra strength. I left this to Banana, instructing them to use their imagination and to strengthen as much as possible with some triangulated plate. In order to make their job easier I stripped the dash out completely.

With time I replaced all of the standard rubber suspension bushes with Powerflex poly bushes. These are made from a harder rubber and therefore flex less when drivng the car hard. All sound in theory. Unfortunately I was very unhappy with the handling with the front ones fitted. The car seemed to wibble around and follow all the surface camber changes. I spent ages looking for the cause. Things were complicated by the need for structural welding along the way. After the welding was complete then things still weren't right on the handling front. The car would stick to the road on corners as good as ever, but the steering feel just wasn't right. I was at the rolling road when I mentioned this to the tuners and they told me to make sure that the bushes were greased up with Copper slip. So I took the front suspension apart. I discovered that the poly bushes had been binding and machining away the chassis leg. I wasn't too happy about this, plus I'd heard other people say the same things. Anyway, I greased the bushes up and reassembled everything.

On the road the car was transformed back to the good old ways. It felt so much better. Sadly, however, the results detiorated over the next two weeks until it was as bad as before. At this time I spoke to rally experts Harry Hockley. They confirmed my suspicions and advised me to use standard bushes and just change them every year to keep them firm. Seems I wasn't wrong then.

Rear anti roll bars I had a rear beam from a 16v Astra hanging around. This has an additional anti roll bar, disc brakes and slightly different camber angle. The long term plan was to fit it to my car. I'd rust treated and painted it. Because I didn't want to spend the money on new discs, as a short term measure I fitted the additional anti roll bar to my existing rear beam.  I noticed a slight difference afterwards. The back was a tad more slidey than before. Still controllable and fun. At this time I was also desperately trying to sort a rattle from the rear end of the car. The source eluded me for a long time. Well, in truth, I put off looking for the source for months. Eventually I decided that I had to sort it out. After fitting a new fuel tank and not solving the problem, I eventually discovered that the standard rear anti roll bar as loose at one end. It'd been like this all the time I'd owned the car!
Steering Knuckle (Universal Joint)
Seam welding This was a major piece of work that took just over a week of full time activity. The engine was removed from the car along with all the wiring. All the front end seams were welded up. The front bulkhead was triple plated. Extra plate was added to the suspension turrets. Tube was added to connect the suspension mount points to the roll cage. Full story: day 1